The Art of Breathing

by T. J. Klune

  “Heavy Petting Zoo,” Sandy snorts. “That’d be a great name for a Christian gospel rap group.”

  “Christian gospel rap?” Paul echoes. “How would that even work?” And then, as if the world isn’t strange enough, he starts to rap. “You know what it is, you know what’d be nice? You and me, boo, and the body of Christ.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s going to be offensive to at least half of your prospective market,” Sandy says. “Especially since you just rapped about a three-way with Jesus.”

  Paul suddenly grins, and it’s adorable. “Guess what the song would be called?”

  “What?”

  “‘The Holy Trinity.’”

  Sandy gasps and throws a dishcloth at him. “You’re going to hell, Paul Auster! No one would buy your music!”

  “I don’t care! I don’t want to be in a Christian gospel rap group called Heavy Petting Zoo! Stop trying to change the subject!”

  “You’re the one rapping about lying with Jesus.”

  Paul rolls his eyes. “Oh please. Why else do they always make him with these great abs and always looking so fine?”

  “Probably to get more people in church,” Sandy says. “Sex sells.”

  “Johnny Depp is a parrot?” I ask Kori, trying to stay afloat in the sea of Paul.

  “I think so,” Kori says.

  “What an odd name for a parrot,” Dom says, licking sugar off the tip of his finger, making me want to raise my hands above my head and curse Sexy Jesus.

  Paul ignores us completely, as if he’s wrapped in his own little world. Which he probably is. “You’re trying to make that parrot turn against me even more!” he says to Sandy. “That animal is already homophobic! You don’t need to make it any worse!”

  “He’s not homophobic,” Sandy says. “He does just fine with Vince and me. It’s not my fault you were kidnapping him to rape him.”

  “I’m not going to rape the goddamn bird!” Paul shouts.

  And then, just because the day needs to be stranger, a male supermodel walks in through the front door holding a small black two-legged dog with a cart attached to its butt, its tongue lolling out of its mouth as it grins at everyone in the room.

  “Is this real life?” I ask Kori and Dom. “Seriously. Is any of this real? Or am I just on an acid trip right now?”

  “This is some really vivid acid if that’s what it is,” Dom says. “I’ve arrested tweakers before. I never thought I’d be one.” He holds his hand in front of his face. “I’m not seeing contrails. I must not be tripping balls yet.”

  “Why are people doing drugs in your house, Sandy?” the supermodel asks with a frown. He sets the handi-capable dog on the floor. The mutt instantly runs over to me, the wheels of his cart squeaking. He bumps his head against my shin and looks up at me and barks. His butt wags back and forth, right where his tail used to be. “Wheels,” I say in greeting, bending over to scratch his ears.

  “Who is that unknown tripping twink touching my dog?” Paul asks. “And why isn’t Wheels growling or shitting on his shoes? That dog hates everyone.”

  “Not everyone,” the supermodel says, coming to stand next to Paul. He kisses the irate man on the cheek. “Remember when you hit me with your car when you were trying to seduce me, and I had to stay at your house and he loved me right away because he knew I was wicked badass?”

  “I wasn’t trying to seduce you!” Paul growls. “And I didn’t hit you with my car! When is anyone going to believe me about that? Wheels, you traitor! You’re supposed to bite the strange twinkie!”

  “I’m not a twink,” I say as I apparently bring his dog to a high state of Nirvana by scratching behind his right ear.

  “Oh, baby doll,” Sandy says to me. “We’ve had this discussion already. You most certainly are a twinkie. As a matter of fact, Hostess called while you were sleeping. They want you back.”

  “You’re Tyson!” the supermodel says, a huge grin on his perfectly perfect face. He walks over to me, grabs my hand, and shakes it vigorously. “I heard about you! Sandy told us about you when we got back from Asia. You’re the supersmart guy, right?”

  “Uh, I guess,” I say.

  He leans in. “Did you know they don’t have fortune-cookie factories in Asia?”

  He looks completely serious, so I nod. “Yeah. They’ve been determined to have been an American invention in the early part of the twentieth century.” Wow. I’m so glad I’m contributing to the madness.

  “See?” he says to Paul over his shoulder. “What else have we been lied to about?”

  Paul sighs. “Vince, I don’t think they meant it to be a malicious lie.”

  Vince scowls, which makes him even hotter, if that were possible. “I’ll never trust the fortunes again.”

  “Kori,” Paul says. “You’re looking smoking hot, as usual.”

  “Thank you,” Kori says, blushing. “You like my hair?” She flicks it around her face and poses, batting her eyelashes.

  “I do. It looks good on you long. You should let Sandy curl it for you tonight when we go out.”

  “Maybe,” she says. I have a feeling her hair will be curled before day’s end.

  Paul turns to Dom and his eyes go wide as he looks him up and down. “Holy sweat balls, Gigantor! Did you eat an entire orphanage when you got up this morning?”

  Dom shrugged. “Better than raping a parrot.”

  Paul narrows his eyes and turns back to Sandy. “You will pay for your crimes,” he says, going for sinister but coming up a bit short. It’s like being accosted by a puppy covered in bubbles.

  “How many times have you threatened me,” Sandy asks, “in all the years I’ve known you?”

  “You gigantic vagina,” Paul says. “I mean it this time!”

  “I’m the vagina?” Sandy retorts. “I seem to remember the only pussy in this room is you.”

  “You sure talk about vaginas a lot for gay guys,” Kori points out. “People might start to think you’re misogynistic or something.”

  Paul waves him off. “Oh please. If you think that means I hate women, you really need to lighten the fuck up. It’s a joke. People who get offended that easily are probably the same people who complain on the Internet about everything under the sun.”

  “Touché,” Kori says.

  “Nice to meet you,” Vince says, shaking Dom’s hand. “You’re the cop, huh? I was going to be a cop once, until I realized guns make me queasy. If they let you be a cop and have, like, a sword or something, I’d totally be on board.”

  “It’s almost time to eat, my pretties,” Sandy says. “If we can mosey on toward the table, mimosas will follow for those of age to have one.” He winks at me. “Don’t want you to get in trouble with your cop.”

  “He’s not my cop,” I say, but no one is listening to me at all. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

  “Not yet,” Paul says. “We’re waiting for one more.”

  “Who?” Sandy asks. “Your parents? Nana?”

  Paul grins and it’s evil. “Shouldn’t have made Johnny Depp scream about rape, Sandford.”

  Sandy’s eyes narrow. “You. Didn’t.”

  “I. Did.”

  “Who’s coming?” Kori asks as Vince and Dom talk about what it feels like to be tased and as Wheels lies on top of my feet and begins to gnaw gently on my ankle.

  “Darren,” I say, remembering the last time I’d seen that look on Sandy’s face, when we talked on Skype a couple of weeks ago. “You’re looking like a fire hydrant, Sandy.”

  “Roast twinkie sounds good right now,” he mutters.

  “Paul was more threatening than that,” I say.

  “I like you, twinkie,” Paul says. “I’m Paul Auster. Yes, yes, like the author. Because no two people in the world were ever named the same thing.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” I tell him. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You invited him here?” Sandy says incredulously. “You… you… you arrogant, pompous fruitcake!�
�

  “You would total understand if you’d seen the looks on the people’s faces sitting in the waiting room at the vet clinic when Johnny Depp screeched, ‘Don’t put it in me again, Paul! Please, I’ll be good this time!’”

  Kori and I burst out laughing.

  “That doesn’t give you any right to invite that… that man into my house! You know how I feel about him, Paul.”

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Kori whispers to me. “Wonder who that sounds like.”

  “Who?” I ask, bewildered.

  He sighs and shakes his head.

  “Everyone knows how you feel about him,” Paul is saying. “And everyone knows how he feels about you. If you would just pull your heads out of your asses and—”

  “You can stop right there,” Sandy says, though he’s more Helena now, all teeth and claws. “Just because you found your dreamy Prince Charming and got your cliché happy ending does not mean everyone else gets to.”

  “I think they’re talking about me,” Vince tells Dom. “I don’t know, though. I tune them out when they get loud. Which is most of the time.”

  “I understand completely about volume issues,” Dom assures him.

  “You better not be talking about me!” I shout at him.

  “It’s not about that,” Paul insists. “And dreamy Prince Charming? Could you make me sound like any more of a princess?”

  “If the glass slipper fits, sweetheart,” Sandy snaps.

  “I’ll have you know that last night I was the one who gave it to Vince hard—”

  “Paul!” Vince yelps.

  Paul groans. “I did it again, didn’t I?”

  “Oversharing!”

  “He called me a princess!”

  “You kind of are.”

  “That’s beside the point!”

  “What is the point?” I ask Paul.

  “That’s… I… oh sweat balls.” He squints at Sandy. “What the devil were we talking about?”

  The doorbell rings.

  “Oh yeah,” Paul says. “That. Darren’s here.”

  “This is not the end of this,” Sandy hisses at him.

  “It never ends,” Vince tells Dom, Kori, and me.

  “You poor guy,” Kori says.

  “Are you kidding?” Vince asks. “It’s awesome. I don’t even have to watch TV anymore. They’re like the Hispanic telenovelas on TV here that I watch with Nana. Bright and colorful and I have no idea what’s going on but someone with an awesome mustache is about to get slapped.”

  “I don’t want the Homo Jock King in my house!” Sandy says. “And that’s final!”

  “Homo Jock King?” I ask.

  Vince shrugs. “It’s a Tucson thing.”

  “Darren!” I hear Paul say from the doorway. “How lovely of you to have made it. Sandy and I were just talking about you!”

  “I bet you were,” a deep voice says.

  Paul walks back into the kitchen… followed by another supermodel, this one bigger than Vince, though they look enough alike to be related.

  “Jesus Christ,” I say, throwing my hands up in the air. “Is everyone here super attractive, built, and gay? This can’t be real life.”

  “Why, thank you, twinkie!” Paul says, puffing out his chest. “I have been working out lately.”

  “Jazzercise on old VHS tapes with Nana and five-pound weights don’t count,” Sandy says.

  “It does if you sweat when it happens,” Paul says. “And I sweat like a little bitch. Wait. That sounds super unattractive.”

  “It is,” Sandy says.

  “I think it’s hot,” Vince says with a shrug. “You should see him with his little shorts on when he’s trying to Jazzercise.”

  “Thank you, baby,” Paul says. Then his eyes narrow. “What do you mean trying?”

  “Sandy,” Darren says stiffly. “I see you’re looking… alive.”

  “Come to mingle with the slovenly today, have we, your majesty?” Sandy asks sweetly. “What a joyous occasion this is! It’s akin to the time that drunk guy threw up on me at the bar.”

  “It’s the same for me,” Darren says. His gaze lands on me. He flashes a predatory smile that makes my knees just a tad bit weak. “Hi there. I’m Darren. Vince’s brother.”

  Dominic moves until he’s standing in front of me just a little bit. Weird.

  “Then why are you here?” Sandy asks.

  “Because I know it pisses you off,” Darren says, sounding bored. “And I didn’t have anything better to do.”

  “No little twinkie bartenders in the storeroom this morning to fuck where just anyone can stumble across you two?”

  “That was last night.” He winks at me.

  “You whore!” Paul says, sounding scandalized.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Vince groans.

  “Brunch is served!” Sandy says with false cheer.

  Jesus fucking Christ.

  21. Where Tyson Receives Advice from the Six Sages

  SAGE THE First:

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” I mutter to Kori as I follow the group up the sidewalk on Fourth Avenue to a bar called Jack It. “Nobody in the world should ever wear skinny jeans. I look ridiculous.” And I do. In addition to the bright blue skinny jeans, I’m wearing a tight white shirt that barely covers my stomach, and my hair is flipped up and messy, held in place by some aptly named product called Cement. I look like a hipster douchebag.

  She glances over at me with a wry grin, her hair freshly curled around her face. “Oh please,” she says. “You look fucking hot. Well, you would if you’d stop walking like you have a butt plug up your ass.”

  “I have to,” I argue. “It’s the only way people won’t be able to tell that I’m circumcised. Why do you even own pants like this? They’re a torture device!”

  “It’s all to show off the goods.”

  “I don’t want to show off my goods. Besides, whatever happened to inner beauty shining through for all the world to see? We’re not shallow people.”

  “Inner beauty doesn’t catch your eye from across the room,” she says. “Your ass in those pants does, though.”

  “I don’t need to attract attention. As a matter of fact, the less attention I, an underage patron in a bar, can attract, the better.”

  “It’s already a little late for that,” she says, sounding amused. “Someone can’t keep their eyes off you.”

  “Who?” I ask, looking around. Dom glances back at me and smiles, then continues his conversation with Vince. My heart does a weird little flip in my chest.

  “God,” Kori says. “How can someone so smart be so completely stupid?”

  “It’s just a phase,” I say. This is where I’ve decided I’m at now. I tried to love him, and it didn’t work. I tried ignoring him, and it didn’t work. I tried blocking my feelings, and it didn’t work. I tried accepting them and moving on, and it didn’t work. Now, being the fickle twenty-year-old that I am and making flip choices at the drop of a hat, I’ve decided it’s just a combination of hero worship, brotherly affection, and dirty thoughts combining into adolescent fantasy. Which, in the end, is just a phase I’m going through.

  And have been for four years, it reminds me. But sure! It’s just a phase.

  Just a couple more months, I tell it. Then I’m gone, back to New Hampshire, where I will focus on my life and make sure I get done what needs to be done.

  That’s cool. I’m sure the first step toward responsible adulthood is those jeans you’re wearing. At least now we know what it feels like to have a rescinded testicle.

  Shut up, I tell my crazy.

  “We can’t stay that late,” I remind Kori. “Dom and I have to start driving back to Tucson in the morning.”

  “Live a little,” Kori says. “Think of tonight as the first night of the rest of your life. Or the last night of carefree youth before you become a boring college student again. Lord knows you’re not going to have any fun back in Seafare the
rest of the summer.”

  “You sure about this?” I ask her. “You know, staying in Tucson? We haven’t really had a chance to talk about this.”

  “We tried,” she reminds me. “Rather, I did. You pouted and refused to discuss it with me.”

  “I never pouted.” I totally did.

  “Sure, Ty. And yes, I think I’m sure.”

  “You think?”

  She smiles and shakes her head. “I know.”

  “Tucson wasn’t great for you.”

  “Seafare wasn’t great for you, yet it’s still your home.”

  “I guess.”

  She takes my hand in hers. “Ty, it’s not always as hard as you’re making it out to be. It wasn’t this place that was awful for me growing up. It was certain people. People who should have never been parents of any kind, fosters or not. Health professionals who had no business dealing with a terrified bigendered kid who thought he was going crazy for waking up some mornings thinking he was a woman. Tucson did none of that to me. It was the people. And I want to make sure that never happens to another scared kid ever again. That’s why I got my bachelor’s in social work. That’s why I want to work here. And I can continue on for my master’s at the U of A.”

  “Kids need help everywhere,” I say, though I know my argument is born out of selfishness.

  She squeezes my hand. “I know. But this is where I’m from. I’ve got good people around me now. My story isn’t in New Hampshire. Or Seafare, like yours is. I think maybe my story is here. And I want to see how it unfolds.”

  “You’re scared, though.”

  “Yeah. A little.” She sighs. “Maybe a lot. How’d you know?”

  “You’ve been girl-Kori more than boy-Corey lately. She comes out more when you’re nervous or worried. Or scared.”

  “She makes me feel safe,” she says.

  “And that’s how you make me feel,” I tell her.

  “Yet, you still couldn’t breathe.”

  “That’s not you,” I say quickly. “That’s… that’s a whole host of other things. My mother, my life, my disorder. Take your pick. I’m kind of messed up in the head.”